


The Tale of a Songstress and a Captive Princess

by Midori_MK



Series: Doropetra Week 2020 [5]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23507431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midori_MK/pseuds/Midori_MK
Summary: Edelgard, Emperor of the Adrestian Empire summons Dorothea, one of her loyal friends to a special mission aiming to investigate a noble that could be ploting against the Empire.What will Dorothea do when she learns that the noble was not conspiring against Edelgard, but actually holding someone captive in a tower within her lands?
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Petra Macneary
Series: Doropetra Week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683523
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: Doropetra Week 2020





	The Tale of a Songstress and a Captive Princess

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Here is another prompt for Doropetra week. This will be a multichaptered fic bit inspired by Rapunzel's tale, but only the part that there is someone being held captive. The events that follow are quite different. 
> 
> Please consider the following for this AU:  
> \- Those who slither in the dark do not exist in this world and no one suffered because of them. Edelgard did not suffer any experimentation and the Tragedy of Duscur did not happen;  
> \- Byleth was still the teacher for the Black Eagles during their school days, and became Edelgard's trusted advisor after she was crowned Emperor;  
> \- Petra did not join the Black Eagles for reasons that will be further detailed on this fic;
> 
> Enjoy!

Dorothea’s steps echoed throughout the large corridors of the Adrestia Imperial castle as she followed a maid that guided her through the palace. She had been summoned by the Emperor herself to discuss what was considered “a sensitive matter for the Empire” as detailed on the letter. The brunette did not know what to expect, but she would likely be assigned to a new mission, a complicated one that is. Dorothea is one of the few that the Emperor trusted for special missions, usually being summoned when discretion was required since the songstress was not formally attached to the Adrestian military.

The maid opened the large doors that led to the throne room. Edelgard, the Emperor waited for her sitting in the throne, expression as serious as ever with Hubert and Ferdinand, her loyal advisors by her side. Dorothea expressed her thanks to the maid as she left.

Edelgard got up from the throne and approached Dorothea, who kindly embraced her long time friend.

“Eddie! Such long time no see huh? I missed you! The songstress happily exclaimed, as she tightened her embrace, much to the Emperor’s embarrassment.

“Dorothea, I already told you to refrain from such actions on official meetings. There is always the possibility of someone watching us.”

“Come one Eddie, I know that these two made sure that there is no one is even close to this place. Am I mistaken?”

“You do have a point, Dorothea! Me and Hubert always make sure that meetings such as these are not heard by a single soul!” The ginger haired knight said, as he politely greeted his friend.

“See Eddie? By the way, where is Byleth?” The brunette inquired as she let go of Edelgard. She was curious to understand why their former professor would not be joining them to discuss whatever secretive topic they had to talk about.

“She is currently teaching some cadets fighting tactics, she will not be joining us.” Was Hubert’s reply, as stern as ever, but happy to see his friend again.

“It is wonderful to see you all again, but I am sure you have something to discuss with me, right?” The songstress questioned directing her gaze to Edelgard, that asked Hubert to give a small piece of paper to the brunette. It seemed to be a map depicting one of the domains of the Empire.

“This is the map of Lady Isenburg’s domain. Hubert gathered some Intel that shows that she is likely hiding something in her castle. We are afraid she might be plotting against the Empire. I want you to investigate her household and provide a detailed report.”

“Of course Eddie, but you know that this woman rarely leaves her castle and does not allow anyone from outside in, don’t you?” Dorothea was always in for a new mission to help her friends, but Lady Isenburg was an eccentric figure of the Empire that was known for being selective for those who were allowed inside her house.

“Worry not, my friend, we have thought about that!” Ferdinand excitedly pulled a letter from his pocket and read its contents to all. It was a mandatory invitation from the Emperor that could not be refused. Lady Isenberg would have to visit the Emperor to update the records of the Isenberg family and to declare her possessions. If she refused the invite, she would need to allow a formal inspection of the house by the Adrestian military. If she was indeed hiding something, she would surely accept the invitation.

“Oh, you are quite smart when you want to Ferdie!” Dorothea teased him while the proud noble protested.

“You shall infiltrate her castle in two days. Use that time to gather more information about Lady Isenburg and to assemble supplies you may need for this mission. The letter also advises her to bring her entourage, which will decrease the number of people patrolling her household. Needless to say, I trust you to accomplish this.” Edelgard said, with a smile on her face.

“You can count on me. I will find out what that woman might be hiding under her wings.”

* * *

Lady Isenburg’s domain was not far from the Empire’s capital. After a 30 minutes’ walk, Dorothea arrived at her destination. She was disguised like a maid as it could easily become an excuse if she was found by anyone patrolling. She had surveilled the castle’s surroundings and found a small passage that could be easily used to get in during her investigation. The path was narrow but enough for her to enter the castle. The songstress hid behind a wall to verify if there was anyone patrolling the garden. With no one in sight, she proceeded to walk through the garden carefully, surprised by flowers of different colors. During her research, she had found out that the mysterious Lady was very fond of flowers and a former war general as well. Lady Isenburg had participated in Brigid’s war against the Empire twenty years ago. Therefore, she could not let her guard down by seeing some pretty flowers.

Of course, the door to the main house was locked, but the songstress was prepared for that. She used some static magic as and opened the door with a small click. She entered the large room, that was filled with old furniture and several family pictures. It was quite creepy, but Dorothea did not let it distract her. She scanned the whole house, hiding whenever she saw someone that could endanger her disguise or just pretending to be cleaning the furniture while some guards passed by. The last place to be explored was Lady Isenburg’s room. The brunette was quite frustrated as she was not able to find anything yet. She rummaged the Lady’s clothes, read her diary and any documents she could find. There was nothing that could prove that the former general was plotting something against the Empire

Dorothea was about to leave the room when she tripped on small creak on the floor, that caught her attention. She carefully raised the uneven piece of wood, finding old pieces of paper underneath it. These were letters exchanged between Lady Isenburg and the former chief general of the Empire. Most of them described strategies to win the war, but one of them caught her attention. “ _Enjoy your big prize for winning the war. Keep it hidden, as this will be a fatal blow to Brigid and its people. They will never raise their arms against the Empire again_.”

It did not seem to Dorothea that this was something known by Edelgard. The Adrestian war against the Brigid archipelago was a very difficult one and many had lost their lives. Both countries were now on friendlier terms, but some tensions still appeared every now and then. Since Edelgard became Emperor, she has restlessly worked to improve their relationship as much as possible. If her friend knew of this, she would likely ask her to investigate it as well. The more she re-read the pieces of paper the more the magician was sure that the mysterious Lady was hiding something. Nevertheless, it did not seem that what she was looking for was in the main house. She would need to keep exploring the other buildings in hopes to complete her investigation before the owner of the household returned from her meeting with Edelgard.

Dorothea locked the door of the main house and found her way to the garden again. Carefully as ever, she decided to investigate what seemed to be an old stable with a tall tower at its end. However, it was so deserted that it must have been ages since someone last stepped there. The brunette did not think she would find anything there but it would not hurt to look. Even though it was a large stable, only four of the horse stalls seemed to be used judging by the dirt on the ground. It probably was the horses used by Lady Isenberg to go to Edelgard’s palace with her bodyguards. Dorothea continued to walk inside the old structure, looking into every single corner, as she heard a loud bark, making her jolt and quickly turn around.

There were five furious dogs approaching her, and it did not seem like they would be distracted by anything the songstress tried to pull off. She could not kill the dogs as it could endanger her mission, besides being mean against the animals. Dorothea slowly walked away while the animals cornered her, closely following suit as her back hit a door. She had to act rapidly before someone found her out. Without thinking twice, she quickly applied her magic against the lock and opened it. She hurriedly got in and closed it against the angered dogs, slumping against the floor. The magician could hear some men talking outside about how the dogs were crazy since no one was allowed near that door as she remained still as silently as possible. That was a close one, she thought. The songstress got up and scanned her surroundings. It was a dark chamber with old weapons scattered through the floor. By examining it, Dorothea could conclude these were not used in a long time. There was also a staircase covered in dust and some cobwebs. If not by the eccentric Lady’s footsteps on it, the songstress would have thought that no one had visited that place in a long time.

Using her magic, Dorothea lit a small flame with her fingers and started climbing the staircase while dodging some cobwebs in the process, she hated spiders but that was not the time to worry about that. The dark path led to a very well locked room. If the mysterious Lady was hiding something, it was sure to be inside that room, the brunette thought excitedly. Without wasting any time, she used her magic to undo the many locks, slowly opening the door.

As she got inside the room, she was quite surprised upon noticing the contrast with the path that led her there. The chamber was unblemished; there was not a single grain of dust nor disgusting cobwebs through its furniture, almost as if someone lived there. Dorothea approached a small counter and picked the books that were resting against it. The titles varied but all seemed to be grammar books about Fodlan’s language. How odd, Lady Isenberg was born in Fodlan and would not need these books, she thought. While she was lost in thoughts puzzled by her findings, the songstress did not notice a shadow looming behind her and was abruptly pushed against the wall by someone. She grimaced in pain as her back hit the solid surface and shot her eyes open to see her opponent, noticing that she was now pinned against the wall with a dagger close to her neck.

“Who are you? Miss Isenburg is always saying that people from outside are bad. You are wanting to hurt me, are you not? ” A woman with purple hair, a bit shorter and seemingly a bit younger than Dorothea herself inquired firmly. She had and a purple tattoo under her right eye and was stunning, if the songstress had to confess. The pressure against her neck told her that she was also quite strong and knew how to defend herself quite well. Therefore, the songstress had to measure her words carefully before doing anything. There were many questions in her mind right now but she needed to save that for later as she did not want to end up without her head.

“You are pretty charming, you know.” Dorothea said slowly reading a spell in case needed. She did not have many options and trying to distract the other woman was the best one right now.

“W-What are you talking about? You have not been answering my question.” The reply came, but not so harsh as her initial question. It meant that the songstress’ plan was working, so she decided to continue.

“Please accept my apologies, I was just surprised to find such a lovely person here in this tower. My name is Rose, I am a maid working for Lady Isenberg.” Dorothea opted to use a fake name as she wanted to assess her agressor's intentions before anything else.

“Is that being so?” The shorter woman replied, slowly removing the pressure from the blade of Dorothea’s throat. She was still carefully scanning the brunette and ready to counter any attack.

“Yes, I was cleaning the stables that lead to here and ended up finding this room. I thought it would need some nice cleaning since the outside was full of dust and those horrible cobwebs. But that is enough about me, wat is your name, sweetie?”

“Sweetie? I am not being made of sugar miss. I am called Petra.” The purple haired woman said, confusion evident in her eyes. Could it be that she was not native of Fodlan? Maybe she was from Brigid judging by the tattoo on her face and arms and the gramar books thar rested in her desk. Dorothea slowly brought the pieces together and was unexpectedly hit with realization. The woman in front of her could be the “prize” from the Brigid war that Adrestian general referred to in his letter to Lady Isenberg, but she would need to ask the right questions to confirm.

“I am sorry, I use sweetie when I want to say someone is gentle or kind. I did not mean any offense.” The songstress offered her response, trying to clear any misunderstandings in the air. “Still, I must confess I am quite amazed as I have working here for some time, but I never saw you around the castle. Do you have any health condition?” She added with a small smile trying to break the ice and to get more information about the mysterious woman in front of her.

“That is not being the case. Lady Isenberg tells me I need to stay here to be protected from people that want to harm me after my mom died; she says she has been my guardian since I was born.” Petra responded, with sadness growing in her words.

Guardian huh, this was getting interesting, the brunette thought as she decided to test the purple haired woman’s resolve to remain in the tower. “The outside world is not that bad, you know. It is true that there are bad people out of there, but there are many nice people like me too.” She finished her sentence with her signature wink to reinforce her statement.

“Is that being so?” Curiosity was evident on Petra’s face. It seemed that even though she was loyal to Lady Isenberg, she was interested in the outside world. Great, her plan was working. Now she just had to push a little bit further the woman’s defenses.

“Yes! I can tell you many great stories about the outside, if you want to of course. But you can not tell your guardian about that, she could get mad at me. What do you think about that?”

“I am liking that idea greatly. Would you be telling me about wyverns? I see many flying through the window freely and I have much curiosity about them.”

“Of course!” With that, Dorothea told her about wyverns, carriages, Fodlan history and some mundane things that made Petra smile, eagerly listening to all of her words. Seeing the younger woman’s eyes shine with excitement after each discovery made her heart warm, but she felt some bitterness at the same time. Not knowing basic things such as Enbarr’s most famous sports festival meant that she really did not have any contact with people besides her guardian. When the songstress felt that Petra was more relaxed around her, she decided to ask some important questions, the real reason she was there in the first place.

“Petra, how long have you been living with Lady Isenberg?”

“I am not having certainty. I remember being with her since ever I was a child. She told me my parents died in war and that she would be protecting me from bad people. This is why I should not be leaving this room. I only allowed you in because you were saying you work for her.”

Dorothea simply could not believe that after all she had seen about Lady Isenberg. From her findings while investigating the eccentric woman, she had found out that she had one daughter that died due to sickness while the former general was fighting the Adrestian-Brigid war. Firstly, there was no way that Petra was this girl as she was nothing alike Lady Isenberg. Secondly, if she was her adoptive daughter, the Empire would have records on that but there were none. It would not require any further insight to guess that the mysterious noble was holding the purple haired woman captive, and the songstress had to find out why.

She was about to ask another question, when she heard footsteps coming from the old staircase. Damn it the woman might have returned earlier than expected and Dorothea had nowhere to run. She had to improvise and put her theatrical skills into action.

“Petra, I believe that your guardian is approaching and she cannot find out I am here, otherwise I will be fired and will no longer be able to tell you these stories. Do you mind letting me hide in your room?” The brunette tried to remain composed as she internally panicked.

“Sure, Rose. You have my gratitude for teaching me so many wonderful things. You can be hiding under my bed.” She replied while showing the space under the bed for the taller woman. Dorothea hurriedly hid herself just in time as the door cracked open.

“Good afternoon, Petra. Is there anything you want to tell me?” The Lady asked, strictness in her voice, as she slowly approached the purple haired woman.

“No, I have been staying in the room as you asked me to-” Dorothea heard a slap and almost hit her head against the bed’s underside. She could not say for sure, but did the Isenberg woman just slap Petra?

“May this serve as a lesson for lying to me. The door to this room was not fully locked and I cannot see anyone in this room. Never dare lie to me again.” The older woman said, as she turned around and closed the door with a loud thud. The sound of padlocks being locked followed that. Dorothea made sure to get up only after she was sure the woman would be far away. To her dismay, she found a teared eyed Petra sitting on the bed as she raised from her spot. Guilt crept over her as she got closer to the shorter woman.

“I am sorry, Petra. I did not mean to cause all of that I-” The songstress words came to a halt as Petra looked at her with watery eyes. This broke her heart and, unconsciously, she grabbed the younger woman’s face in her hands while applying healing magic. She could not end the pain in the captive’s heart, but she could at least heal her burning cheek. This caught Petra’s attention as her expression slowly changed from pained to surprised.

“What is this white light being called?” She asked, likely unused to the sight of magic after living alone in that tower for many years.

“It is a healing spell. Magic that helps when someone gets hurt.”

“I have understanding. Please be accepting my thanks.” Even while trying to outline a smile, the sadness in Petra’s eyes betrayed her statement.

“Is she always like that with you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you obey her?” Dorothea knew that this question could raise suspicions about her plan, but she did not care anymore. She was just so furious with the fact that not only the poor woman was held captive for years, but also treated badly by the person that was supposedly her guardian.

“She is the only person I have. Without her, I am being all alone and would surely suffer in the world if I were to be trying to escape.”

That statement just left the songstress with no words. Petra spent her whole life being held captive by someone that did not even care about her. The brunette did not understand why Lady Isenberg would do something like that, but she had to do something to change that reality. Dorothea would not be able to do anything alone since the older woman was an esteemed noble in the Empire due to her past, but Edelgard surely would not let this case go unnoticed. She had to report to the Emperor and come up with a plan to save the purple haired woman.

“Petra, listen. I need to go now or Lady Isenburg will notice that I am not working, but I will come back to teach you more things, is that ok?” She said as she gently caressed Petra’s face, who melted in her touch, which made Dorothea feel things she would rather not at their current situation.

“You are having much kindness, Rose. No one has ever treated me with such kindness. I have trust in you.” She replied with a smile, the first genuine smile she had seen from her. The Opera singer had decided to help Petra, no matter what. To do that, she would need to figure out a way to get out without being found by the angry dogs or the crazy Isenberg Lady. Dorothea carefully examined her surroundings and her eyes landed in the window. She looked at the outside and even though she was in a tall tower, she would be able to get down if she tied some blankets from Petra’s bed and used it as an escape rope. In addition to that, the window’s direction led to outside of the Isenberg’s castle, which would make it easier for Dorothea to get out of there.

The songstress explained her plan to Petra, that agreed with it and helped her tie the blankets and attached it to her bed, to make sure that her new friend would not fall. She was still a bit puzzled as to why she would not get out from the front door, now that Lady Isenberg was probably sleeping, but the brunette dismissed her concerns saying that she was only allowed into the house until late afternoon, since it was night, she had to get out using this unconventional way.

Before leaving, she looked one last time at Petra. The younger woman had a lonely look in her eyes. Without being able to contain herself, Dorothea approached her and planted a soft kiss on the cheek that was hit earlier. “I will come back as soon as possible; there is no need to worry.” She reassured Petra, who blushed at the unexpected display of affection.

With this, the songstress carefully climbed over the window. She did a small pull to see if the cord of blankets were strong enough to hold her. Feeling confident enough, she started descending the tower and swiftly landed outside after a few minutes.

Lady Isenberg was surely going to have a blast when Edelgard finds out about that, the magician thought as she successfully left Isengerg’s domain and made her way to return to the Empire's capital.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! It was nice writing this as a multichaptered fic as I will have more room to develop Petra's and Dorothea's relationship. 
> 
> This time, the prompt used was the Fairy Tale AU from day 6. I will use day 7th's magic prompt for the second chapter that is under development so stay tunned for updates! 
> 
> Please consider leaving a kudo or a comment if you liked this fic as I would love to hear your thoughts. Feedbacks and critiques are highly appreaciated. In case you want to talk with me you can find me on twitter as @km_midori :)


End file.
